With those that have but little: this must be

patch'd

With cloth of any color.

Com.

Nay, come away.

[Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, and others. First Patrician. This man has marr'd his fortune. Men. His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for 's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:

What his breast forges, that his tongue must
vent;

And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.

Here's goodly work!

Sec. Pat.

260

[A noise within.

I would they were a-bed!

Men. I would they were in Tiber! What, the

Sic.

vengeance,

Could he not speak 'em fair?

Re-enter Brutus and Sicinius, with the rabble.

Where is this viper,

That would depopulate the city, and

Be every man himself?

Men.

You worthy tribunesSic. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock

With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,

And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power,

Which he so sets at nought.

First Cit.

He shall well know 270

The noble tribunes are the people's mouths

And we their hands.

Citizens. He shall, sure on 't.

Men.

Sic. Peace!

Sir, sir,

Men. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt

Sic.

As I do know the consul's worthiness,
So can I name his faults,-

Consul! what consul?

He consul!

280

Men. The consul Coriolanus.
Bru.

Citizens. No, no, no, no, no.

Men. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,

Sic.

I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.

Speak briefly then;
For we are peremptory to dispatch

This viperous traitor: to eject him hence

Were but one danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death: therefore it is decreed
He dies to-night.

275. "Do not cry havoc"; this signal for general slaughter was not to be pronounced with impunity, but by authority. Thus in the Statutes and Ordynaunces of Warre, 1513: "That no man be so hardy as to crye havoke, upon payne of him that is so founde begynner, to dye therfore, and the remenaunt to be emprysoned, and their bodies to be punyshed at the kinges wyll."-H. N. H.

Men.

Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!

290

Sic. He's a disease that must be cut away.
Men. O, he's a limb that has but a disease;
Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome that 's worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-
Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath
By many an ounce-he dropp'd it for his coun-

Sic.

try;

And what is left, to lose it by his country
Were to us all that do 't and suffer it

A brand to the end o' the world.

301

This is clean kam. Bru. Merely awry: when he did love his country,

It honor'd him.

Men.

The service of the foot

Being once gangrened, is not then respected
For what before it was.

Bru.

We'll hear no more.
Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence;
Lest his infection, being of catching nature, 310
Spread further.

Men.

One word more, one word.
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find

293. "Jove's own book"; a Jewish not a Roman idea.-C. H. H. 304. "clean kam" appears to have been corrupted into kim-kam; of which word Holland's Plutarch furnishes several instances: "First mark, I beseech you, the comparison, how they go clean kim kam, and against the stream, as if rivers run up hills.”—H. N. H.

The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,
Tie leaden pounds to 's heels. Proceed by

process;

Lest parties, as he is beloved, break out,

And sack great Rome with Romans. Bru.

Sic. What do ye talk?

If it were so

Have we not had a taste of his obedience?

Our ædiles smote? ourselves resisted? Come. Men. Consider this: he has been bred i' the wars 320 Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd In bolted language; meal and bran together He throws without distinction. Give me leave, I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him Where he shall answer, by a lawful form, In peace, to his utmost peril. First Sen.

Sic.

Noble tribunes,
It is the humane way: the other course
Will prove too bloody; and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.

Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people's officer.
Masters, lay down your weapons.

Bru.

Go not home.

330

Sic. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you

there:

Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
In our first way.

Men.

I'll bring him to you.

[To the Senators] Let me desire your company: he must come,

Or what is worst will follow.

First Sen.

Pray you, let's to him. [Exeunt.

SCENE II

A room in Coriolanus's house.

Enter Coriolanus with Patricians.

Cor. Let them pull all about mine ears; present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels;
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight; yet will I still
Be thus to them.

A Patrician.

Cor. I muse my mother

You do the nobler.

Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woolen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.

Enter Volumnia.

12

16. “O, sir, sir, sir"; in Mr. Collier's second folio this is altered to,